


42:  Say It

by light_source



Series: High Heat [42]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:55:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim’s mouth is half-open, his shirt hauled over the side of one shoulder where Zito’s pulled it, a red streak from Zito’s rough handling on his chest. His cheeks are flushed with something Zito doesn’t recognize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	42:  Say It

In the postgame green-room crush, Zito’s chatting up Beezie Courtney, wife of the Giants’ junior shareholder. He’s clasped his hands behind his back so that his shoulders flex and widen, and his head’s down and his eyes flash up underneath his brows. Mrs. Courtney - _please, call me Beezie_ \- angles herself inward, her head rolling sideways as if she’s stretching, one hip cocked. Her hair, four hundred dollars worth of blonde, flies straight out at the ears like a nun’s wimple. She rolls the stem of her wineglass slowly in her fingers as though she’s practicing.

Though he crinkles his eyes at Mrs. Courtney and his lips part softly in a way he knows looks like listening, Zito’s attention is fixed on what’s happening across the room. Tim’s over there, against the wall, his head bent to listen to someone who just reaches his shoulder. She’s blonde and slight, the size of a big kid, sees Zito through a momentary gap in the crowd. There’s a laminated ID swinging from the team lanyard around her neck, and she’s dressed in the t-shirt and jeans of someone who’s been working the game.

What makes Zito’s gut drop is the way Tim’s got his arm around her waist, and as she stretches her mouth up to his ear to say something, Tim’s face is split by a huge grin.

//

The aftergame party’s in Tribeca, an old button-factory loft - Bocock knows where to find the unmarked steel door that’s opened, after he knocks, by a guy in a black do-rag. A metal-caged freight elevator lets them out into a big space so crowded that people are sitting perched on tables, on the backs of sofas. Two guys dancing in the strobe light have spiraled their arms over their heads like ice skaters to avoid whacking the staff who’re passing through with drink orders.

They’d done a little Ecstasy in the back of the towncar. Sergio’d brought a vial of blue tablets, and now Zito’s feeling absolutely lit up with wanting to talk. To someone. _Anyone._

 _Okay, okay, it can be Wilson,_ he thinks, as he and Brian, seeking release from the press of bodies, breach the top of a metal staircase that empties out onto the roof and the blurry yellow night.

\- Hot, says Brian. He pulls out a jay from behind his ear, the place where a carpenter would keep a pencil.  After he lights it and sucks down a hit, he passes it to Zito.

\- Where’s Timmy? Wilson says, too casually. - Haven’t seen him since the game.

Zito passes the jay back and shrugs. - I’m not keeping track, he says, kicking the edge of a turban-shaped metal fan vent that’s circling slowly. _If there’s a breeze,_ Zito thinks, _fuck if I can feel it._

\- The hell you aren’t, says Wilson all at once.

\- Weather’s not the only thing in New York that’s hot, Barry, he continues, - that girl, the one who hit him in the Don & Charlie’s parking lot, there’s something going on there. He was talking to her in the TSA line the other day, he says, - on the phone. Making a plan. For tonight.

Zito’s Jack-and-coke, slippery with condensation, is threatening to slide through his fingers, so he sets it down on the corner of a raised skylight that’s etched with dirt and pigeon droppings. There’s no railings up here, he notices; nothing to keep anyone from making a bad decision. Just patched asphalt with that tarry smell that reminds him of games of kick-the-can back on Altadena Street in El Cajon.

\- Maybe our boy’s ready to come out of the other closet, says Brian, - you know, the _straight_ one.

This isn’t the conversation Barry was hoping for, but it’s a game the two of them know how to play, and Zito knows exactly how to tilt the board so the ball lands in his slot.

\- You think, Brian? He keeps his voice colorless.

On the other side of the skylight silo there’s a bunch of those white plastic patio chairs that used to be everywhere, now greyed with age and city dirt. Zito eases himself into one - its legs clack open with the impact of his weight - and uses his fingernails to hold the roach Brian’s offered him, his lips narrowed around the current of smoke.

\- Timmy’s pretty hot himself right now, Barry, says Wilson, - on the field. In the press. And other places, would be my guess, he says, glancing up at Zito, who doesn’t meet his eyes. - He’s playing like he doesn’t care. That little skip, coming off the mound, even when he was losing today - he’s bagged it.

\- Didja ever think about that giant stride of his, Barry, says Wilson, - like he’s a guy leaping over something? He leaps and then he brings it all to a stop. Never catches a cleat, doesn’t stumble off the mound like the rest of us. Just hangs there on his front leg, checking out the damage he’s done. He’s got balance, that kid. He could walk a rope.

\- Timmy’s one in a million, says Zito softly. The marijuana’s starting to settle the way his heart’s been knocking itself around his chest. - Maybe one in a generation.

There’s a long silence, where each of them is waiting for the other to speak.

\- It’s good you see it, says Wilson, who’s kicked off his huaraches and propped his bare feet up against the dirty silo of the skylight. - Cause he’s not really in our hands any more.

//

On the flight to Chicago the next day, Tim’s sleeping, curled up in the bulkhead as always, wheezing softly, one of his feet poking through the gap in the armrest.

Zito and Wilson are across the aisle from each other. They’ve spent most of the flight passing Brian’s magnetic scrabble board back and forth and arguing about the legality of words like _a’a_ and _zounds_.

When Zito gets the board back for his turn, he hopes Wilson hasn’t blocked up the space he’s planning to use for a triple letter score. Brian’s latest play isn’t a word at all, but a phrase, capitalizing on a terminal E: _HESGONE._

\- Not a word, Brian, says Zito wearily, looking up and over. - No score.

He stretches his arm out, board in hand, across the aisle.

Wilson’s got his arms folded over his chest, his eyebrows raised. 

//

The Giants’ midweek series against the Cubs brings no relief from the searing midsummer heat that’s settled over the eastern half of the continent. Or from the losing streak that started in LA, even before the Giants were swept by the Mets.

Zito’s got old friends in Chicago, Enrique Valdez and Tyler Grohman, who played with him at USC. Tyler’s an investment banker now, hangs with a pretty glossy crowd, and he’s arranged for them all to get together after the game for drinks and dinner on his yacht.

For two nights running - he doesn’t start in this series - Zito’s out partying on the 'boat' till the sun brightens the sky over the far side of Lake Michigan. The second morning, whatever day it is, he wakes up belowdecks in an elegantly appointed stateroom.  There's somebody in bed with him - her hair as yellow and stiff as straw, connected to a neck with a butterfly tattoo on it and an angular, deeply tanned shoulder he doesn’t recognize.

He turns over and suppresses a groan. Her phone’s on the nightstand on his side, and he considers looking to see if there’s a name.

Instead he slides on his boxers in a single motion and buttons his shirt as he’s working his way sideways through the galley.

When he steps off the gangway onto the deserted dock, he’s glad there’s only a few seagulls and the plop of a leaping fish to welcome him back to earth.

//

Tim’s the stopper. He wins the final game of the series, and Wilson gets the save. Not coincidentally, they’re both All-Stars this year. So the two of them say their goodbyes to their teammates at the VIP loading dock at the Ritz-Carlton, where the team’s getting on the bus for the flight back to San Francisco.  The two pitchers will get into their own limo and head off to a different airport, where they'll catch a plane for New York.

When they get to Midway, though, their flight’s not listed on the departures board.  They’re about to argue with the ticket agent when she points out that their flight is scheduled to depart not from Midway but from O’Hare. On the other side of town.

\- Get a cab, downstairs two doors and then right, you might make it, she says, - but it’ll be close.

As the two of them whirl and take off at a run, clutching their carryons to their chests like shields, she’s shaking her head.

//

From the doors of the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago to the lobby of the Grand Hyatt in New York, the trip that was scheduled to take five hours, max, has taken thirteen.

As Brian’s checking them in - a task that usually falls to the Giants' traveling secretary, Kell - Tim sinks down on a chair in the ultra-modernist lobby and punches a number into his phone.

Wilson brings him his keycard and pauses a moment, waiting for Tim to rise. And then Brian sees her striding across the lobby. No t-shirt and jeans this time; she’s wearing a dark suit, her blonde hair’s curving around her chin, and as she comes closer, he sees she’s wearing a pair of baroque pearl earrings that bring out the fineness of her jawline.

\- So tomorrow, says Brian to Tim after the introductions (her handshake’s firm and she’s got eyes even bluer than his own, he notes), - give me a call when you’re ready - around 10:30? - we’ll cab up to the Bronx.

//

The next morning, before breakfast, Brian has time for a five-mile run in the park and a sauna in the Grand Hyatt’s gym. At 10:15, as he’s finishing his egg-white frittata with swiss chard and goat cheese and a side of artisanal sourdough, he punches in Tim’s number.

The call goes straight to voicemail.

At 10:35 Brian tries again - no answer - and then he goes outside, makes small talk with the doormen, and waits another fifteen minutes under the porte-cochère. When Tim finally blows out the revolving doors, wearing dress pants and a white shirt that’s ironed but not tucked in, he’s buckling on his watch, and his hair’s matted in back.

\- _And?_   says Wilson. They’re in the cab, but at a standstill, midmorning traffic on Third Avenue.

\- And _what_?  says Tim. His jaw’s sticking out in a way Brian knows better than to challenge.

Brian pulls out his BlackBerry and spends the rest of the cab ride punching in codes and figures for his expense report.

//

if there’s one thing Zito hates, it’s when his calls to Tim go straight to voicemail.

Zito’d decided early in the week to stay in Chicago for the All-Star Break - Tyler and Enrique have plans for a few more ‘festivities,’ as Tyler calls them, and Zito figures it’ll at least keep him busy while Tim’s at Yankee Stadium for his debut in the Midsummer Classic.

But as he’s having a run on the lakeshore - it’s already so hot that his back and belly are wet with sweat - Zito stops when he feels his phone buzz. He puts his hands on his knees, and takes himself off to the grass, where he struggles, in the bright light, to make out the display. There’s a jeering text from Wilson, a text that makes his eyes burn.

**hes w/her**

Enraged, Zito pushes himself back into his run. Five minutes later, the phone buzzes again and Zito can’t not look.

**U R fucked Z**

There’s twenty-three flights from O’Hare to La Guardia that afternoon, and Zito makes the 12:35.

//

Tim didn’t get much sleep last night, and he’s tired when he gets back from the ASG press conference - each player’s given a fifty-minute interview, and Tim’s went on even longer than that.

He’s thinking he’s got just enough time for a nap before he takes Megan out at seven.

Once in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, though, he’s besieged by autograph seekers, so he signs pretty much everything they hand him - envelopes, balls, copies of the SI magazine cover, menus from the restaurant.

Then, suddenly, he catches sight of Zito, unshaven and battered-looking, sitting in one of the wide, flat lobby chairs over by the elevators.  He's threading a rolled-up copy of the _Times_ through his fingers, and his eyes are bigger and darker than Tim remembers.

//

In the elevator, on the way up, they stand in opposite corners, pretending to lounge against the rails. When the only other people on the elevator get off at 15 and the doors meet, closing the two of them in, Zito sighs.

\- What the fuck, says Tim, as though he’s experimenting.

Zito just looks at him.

//

The door of Tim’s room has just sucked shut behind them when Zito pushes Tim up against the entryway wall, jamming a thigh between Tim’s to keep him there, and shoving his shoulders hard against it.

He presses his mouth onto Tim’s, forcing his tongue between Tim’s lips and ramming it deep into his mouth, so deep that Tim’s head twists sideways as though he’s trying to get loose.

Zito’s hands are scrabbling at Tim’s shirt - he chops the edge of one hand down the placket, snapping off all the buttons. When his hand lands on the waistband of Tim’s slacks, his fingers dimly register the lack of a belt and he snaps that button off too, so hard it ricochets across the entryway.

Tim works one of his hands loose and uses his forearm, elbow against the wall, to push Zito back. Their mouths come apart with a tearing sound, and they’re both breathing as hard as if they’d been running, Tim’s eyes hard and his brows dense with rage.

\- What the fuck - Tim says again, and as he shakes his head to emphasize his confusion, his disbelief, Zito grabs Tim’s right hand and slams it up against the wall, so hard that Zito’s pitching hand itself feels the blow, goes numb with impact, and that brings him back to his senses.

He eases himself away from Tim and the wall, hands on his hips, and takes a few steps back. Tim’s mouth is half-open, his shirt hauled over the side of one shoulder where Zito’s pulled it, a red streak from Zito’s rough handling on his chest. His cheeks are flushed with something Zito doesn’t recognize.

Then comes the sound of Tim’s phone, buzzing in the front pocket of his pants in a way that reminds Zito insanely of the pager his dad used to wear back in the day, on a clip on the side of his belt.

Zito presses forward again, fumbles his fingers in Tim’s pocket. He snags the phone, slapping Tim's hands away, and hurls it into the far wall. The back cover pops off, and the battery and SIM card catch the bounce and fly off in different directions, one coming to rest against the base of the armoire.

Tim’s standing there, rubbing the wrist of his glove hand, when Zito realizes - just as it happens - that he’s striding forward. It’s a motion Barry knows too well, that long stride.  Instinctively Zito brings his right arm up in a wild haymaker that’s designed to blunt the trajectory.

Imagine his surprise, then, when Tim seizes him by the neck and pulls him into a kiss that lands them both on the bed. Zito’s head snaps back against the pillows, his knees jackknifed, Tim’s slippery weight, pure bone and muscle, all over him like a promise.

//

One strange thing about this night is how completely it brings them face to face.  It's not because they're drunk. And there’s no reason to do the coke that Zito picked up at Tyler’s party, no desire to light up a joint.  

As Tim shoves Zito back into the center of the bed, unbuckling his belt and whipping it out of the loops so hard that it singes a raw stripe over his own belly, Zito feels the two of them fall into a rhythm that’s as complicated as a dance and as delicate as a triple play. Zito, whose habit has always been to talk everything to death, finds himself speechless and disoriented, neither knowing nor caring what will come next.

Tim’s taken charge. Zito’s stretched out on the bed, feeling exposed and vulnerable, his dick rock-hard and his throat nearly shut with desire.

When Tim bends down, his head between Zito’s legs, and runs his tongue slowly around the insides of Zito’s thighs, his taint, his already-tight balls, Zito knows only to let his hips follow the motion of Tim’s mouth, asking, taking, letting the pleasure flush all the way up his skin.

Tim’s taking his time, his eyes flashing up to meet Zito’s, stopping and starting and tracing out the lines of places neither of them can name - the place where leg meets groin, the twin grooves where the belly slopes downward, the soft line of hair that points to his cock.

When he finally takes the head of Zito’s dick in his mouth, Zito’s whole body seizes up with pleasure and the sound that comes out of his mouth startles both of them. When he’s getting close, Tim sucking him deep and hard, he pulls Tim off and up for a kiss that tastes of sex and heat and sweat.

It’s not till Tim’s fucking Barry, bent over his back, pushing in with that easy, insouciant rhythm that says he could go on like this all night - that Tim hisses into his left ear -

 _\- Say it_. I want you to say it.

Zito leans his head back, feeling the sweat on the nape of his neck soak his hair. His mouth’s ajar, his eyes wide.

\- What?

\- Don’t fuck with me, Barry. _Say it._

Tim pulls out of him - it’s like a blow, this sudden abandonment - and pushes Zito over roughly, so they’re now face to face. Tim’s hair’s stringy with sweat and there’s a silvery streak of come on the inside of his arm from earlier, and he’s skinnier than ever. To Zito, he’s never looked more arresting.

Tim hefts Zito’s legs over his shoulders and pushes his cock back in to Zito's tight ass with a thrust he knows is gonna hurt - and, as Zito gasps, the steely expression on Tim's face shows he clearly doesn’t care. As his hips take charge of Zito’s, the rhythm the only thing Barry can follow, Tim takes Barry’s dick in his own hand, slicks it with saliva, and slowly, savagely starts to jerk him off.

The current of heat and light that takes Zito over the edge loosens his tongue, and as Tim, coming, collapses on his belly, writhing, Zito finally grabs at the words, breathes them into the hot hollow of Tim’s mouth -

_\- I’m in love with you._

Tim groans long and hard. He spread-eagles himself on Zito, both their arms flung out crosswise, and grinds his hips and abs one last time into the slick mess of sweat and come between their bellies.  And finally he gives out there, with a long breath. 

He covers Zito’s lips with his own, his tongue dry from fighting for breath.

Their mouths, and their hands, clench and loosen and twine.

It’s not till later that Zito realizes that the wet on his face is tears.

//

They fall asleep when they've exhausted desire, entirely spent.

Tim's sideways with his feet hanging off the edge of the big bed, and Zito's curled up, one knee pulled up to his chest, the way he always sleeps.  

//

In the morning, just as it's light, Zito wakes to the sound of retching.

Tim emerges from the bathroom, his face white, his eyes black-socketed and his hair wet. Barry’s just managed to pull on his boxers when Tim collapses and lands face down on the carpet, one arm stretched above his head like the Statue of Liberty.

Zito doesn’t remember moving as fast as he must have.  Only that he’d called down to the front desk for two liters of Gatorade now and a cab in about fifteen, and where’s the nearest best hospital?

 _Shit,_ he thinks, _I've killed him._

//

The Grand Hyatt staff funnel them quietly out the VIP dock into an unmarked car.  At one point, Zito nearly panics, wonders if he should've called an ambulance; the route to New York Presbyterian’s paralyzed by a diplomatic traffic delay and there's a cabal of mounted police that misdirects them west six blocks.

Barry imagines, crazily, that this is what it must be like when your pregnant wife’s water breaks in the middle of grocery shopping and you have to get her there, _now._

Tim’s got his head back against the headrest, his long neck looking as fragile as a lily stem, and his skin so white that the blue veins look like rivers on a map. But Zito takes heart when Tim opens his eyes and grins a little, and he hisses under his breath -

\- What the fuck did you do to me? Is this what they mean when they say _well and truly fucked_?

The hospital's a glossy white labyrinth, and Zito's signing forms and following Tim's gurney down the hall behind three orderlies, squinting in the fluorescent glare. Propped up in bed among the beep of machines, Tim’s pronounced dehydrated and hooked up to a saline drip.  

As Barry sits in a chair in the corner and Tim stares at a fat red square of jello they've been trying to get him to eat, the doctors force them both to think back.  It's Barry who finally remembers that a bunch of guys on the team were sick like this in Chicago, which is probably where Tim picked it up.

//

By nine o’clock that night, they’re back at the hotel, eating Oreos, watching the Midsummer Classic unfold without Tim.  His absence because of hospitalization is duly noted by the press.

It’s the longest All-Star Game in MLB history - four hours and fifty-two minutes, ending at 1:37 in the morning.

But later, all that Tim and Barry remember is what _wise use_ they made of that four hours and fifty-two minutes, in the flickering light of the TV with the sound off.

What was said, and said again, and what was unsaid, and what was beyond the capacity of anyone to say with anything but hands, and mouths, and cocks.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The baseball facts are canon, including Tim's hospitalization and scratch at the 2008 ASG.
> 
> _Everything else is fiction: not true, wholly invented, never happened, never will._


End file.
